


Ripples on the Surface

by QueenMaeve



Series: MCU RarePair Bingo 2019 [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, MCU Rarepair 2019, Mentions of Death, Sadness after a battle, empathic abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 02:51:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19781743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenMaeve/pseuds/QueenMaeve
Summary: Mantis is the only empath alien she knows, and it gets really lonely. She really can't expect to find a connection in a random fight like this one, can she?





	Ripples on the Surface

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story ever and my first fill for MCU Rarepair Bingo 2019! It fills: N3 Free Space
> 
> Many, many thanks to my beta readers: [Serinah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serinah/pseuds/Serinah), who told me about the bingo and then promptly tried to save me from myself; [Loran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loran_Arameri), who was endlessly encouraging; and my secret betas, who aren't on this site. Seriously, thank you so much, I never would have had the courage to write if not for you.

Mantis really needed a hug.

In all honesty, she'd needed one for a while now. It was a need that had started soon after she had been taken from her people, a need that had grown and grown and had never been satisfied.

Because for so long now she had been among these others; these beings that knew how to feel only themselves and not how to share those emotions. Didn't know how sharing sorrow meant a burden halved, didn’t know how joy shared was joy compounded. How the touch of a lover grew to untold bliss.

She knew the others found her simplistic in her speech, but what need had she for clumsy words when every touch was living poetry?

But it was poetry only she could hear. The tragic elegy to Drax's family she felt in her bones every time she brushed past him in the close quarters of their ship. The stifled sonnets between Peter and Gamora. She had been swept up in the deafening ode to Ego’s insanity. At every touch, her instincts screamed at her to ease their burdens, to join together until their struggles became bearable. 

But while she could influence their emotions, they never heard her own. She could force them to be calm or to sleep, could smother their emotions with a blanket of apathy, but they couldn’t feel the more subtle support of her sympathy.

There was no reason why today should be any different. Adventures abound, but always silence remained her constant.

For now, though, she focused on the fight. She brushed fingers against any exposed skin she could reach, distracting those who would attack her fellow Guardians, undermining their resolve to win. Flitting behind their defenses, she darted from enemy to enemy, until she was confronted by a warrior encased in armor. Unable to find an opening, she was defenseless against the blow from his club. Stunned, she watched as he readied the second blow, until his weapon was caught by one of her allies. Her defender made quick work of the armored warrior, and hastened to her side.

It was one of the allies they had summoned from Earth. He reached a hand down eagerly to help her up, and as she clasped it she braced for the welter of emotions that battered at her with every touch, a barrage that was meant to be reciprocal but hadn’t been for so long. It came all at once: the fear for friends, the pain of his wounds, his uncertainty regarding the outcome of the battle and the war yet to come, and the muted pain of past sorrow.

But mostly there was … joy. Pure unadulterated joy. Ecstatic, disbelieving giddiness at being once more amongst the stars. Fierce determination to do the right thing. Pride in the lives he had saved that day. And -

\- oh. 

And the hesitant pleasure as she took his hand. Out of ancestral instinct, she reached out with her hand and her gratefulness, forgetting he was as deaf to her feelings as everyone else she had encountered. She let his exhilaration fill her, let it push aside her loneliness and instead feed her happiness, and reflected it back to him, and, impossibly, he stumbled at the unexpected surge of emotions. Had he… felt it?

“Oh wow, is that from you? They told me you could feel me, so sorry about that; I’m still kinda worked up about that space flight, ‘cause that was cool but pretty scary, you know? Well, not for you, you’re an alien from space. Uh, I mean, you’re an alien to me, you’re probably normal to you. But you’re an empath alien, so that’s cool. I didn’t know I’d be able to feel you, too, you feel really nice. Oh, god.” The slender human still had her hand in a gentle grip.

She laughed softly in an echo of his emotions. His cheerfully awkward babbling was just ripples on the surface of the calm pool of his inner peace. 

“You are happy. It is nice,” she said, for once not overwhelmed by the repressed emotions of those she touched.

“Yeah, I guess I am mostly happy. I mean, this is definitely better than the last time I was in space, when we hitched a ride on that round spaceship with you? You’re very warm. We’re stuck on this planet, but Dr. Strange is here, and he makes those glowing magic portals, so we can probably get home, I hope. Wonder if I can get an extension on my essay for going off-planet? But I can’t really say that so do you think Dr. Strange would write me a doctor’s note? Not for something weird though. Plus, we beat the aliens. The bad ones. You guys are obviously good aliens. Do your antennae always glow like that? It’s really pretty.”

She basked in the sensations, his cheerful burble a light counterpoint to the quieter, deeper serenity of his optimistic nature until they were called to regroup for the night. 

****

After fighting off their opponents’ reinforcements the following day, Mantis sat alone as the other survivors found each other, reassured themselves of each other’s well-being, far enough away from them that there was no risk of accidental contact. She had spent the last hours of the battle with the mortally injured and dying. Some of them, sometimes, in their final moments, could feel the peace she was sharing as if death broke down the barriers that held back their emotions. Most of them, though, never felt what she offered, as she attempted to ease them into death, and she weathered their fear and their pain until there was nothing left to feel. She had made her way back and forth across the battlefield, clasping hands, soothing brows and stroking the hair of the fallen until she had reached the end and was surrounded only by the peace of the dead. 

Now she sat, utterly drained of tears and emotion. 

The scuffing of feet across the rocky ground broke the silence. 

“Hey, uh, are you alright?” It was the ordinarily cheerful human she had met before, his natural ebullience muted by the events of the day.

“‘Alright’?” She repeated after a pause, confused.

“Yeah, it’s like, are you okay? Are you injured? You’re just over here by yourself, do you need help?” 

“I need …” she took a deep breath, “a hug.”

“A hug? I can give you a hug. Or did you mean from someone else? I didn’t mean to presume, I should get someone else.” 

She rose slowly to her feet, feeling every one of the hundreds of deaths she had borne witness to since that morning, and turned to meet the keen eyed human’s gaze. She held out her arms and waited. 

Hesitantly, he stepped forward and wrapped her in his arms, resting his cheek against her hair, and she enjoyed his amusement when her antennae tickled his nose. 

She held him and cautiously allowed the brush of his emotions against hers. She felt his lingering fear, yes, but she also felt his relief that they had survived, and his growing happiness at their embrace. She opened herself more and was surprised at the strength of his concern for her, concern that was transmuting to delight as they held each other. Relying on instinct and blurry childhood memories, she guided the back and forth of their emotions, amazed at the empathy of this unassuming Terran, unique among all those she had met on her travels. She felt the sharp bite of his nervousness before he broke the silence. 

“Do you kiss?” he asked.

She pulled back to look at him, raising her antennae in inquisition. “Do I what?” she finally asked, when he didn’t elaborate.

“The, uh, kind of alien you are. Do you kiss? Or is that an Earth thing? Because consent is important, but I didn’t want to ask if you don’t do that,” he said, the pink in his cheeks an external barometer of his nervous embarrassment as she felt it through their point of contact.

“You could show me a kiss, and then I can be the kind of alien that does kissing,” she answered as her antennae glowed in anticipation. 

“Right, okay. I can do that,” he said as he raised his hand before touching it gently to her cheek. He cupped her face, thumb stroking her cheek as his other arm tightened around her waist. Her eyes fluttered closed as she forwent vision in favor of feeling, reveling in the warmth of his embrace, the slide of his thumb, and, most of all, the swirling joy they built together. He leaned in slowly, before gently pressing their lips together. They stood, frozen by the emotional intensity, before he eased back. 

With his forehead pressed to hers between her antennae, his breath puffed against her lips as he asked, “So, is kissing okay?”

“Kissing is good,” she answered, and pressed her lips back to his as they shared their breath and their joy.

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this came from Pinterest, someone had saved a post that said something to the effect of, “What if Mantis hugged Peter and just felt happiness?” and when I signed up for the rarepair bingo, this is what popped into my head. I would love to give credit properly, but I have no idea who that was. 
> 
> As I was writing this, Loran said this about Mantis and I thought it was so funny I had to share: I love her but she and Drax are really people you should take by the shoulders and turn in the right direction before you say run.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
